Saturday, December 18, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
BLISTERING PACE FOR EVERETT, AKA EELS
FILE - In this June 30, 2006 file photo, Mark Oliver Everett, better known to his fans as "E", frontman of US indie band Eels, performs with his band during the Open Air Music Festival in St. Gallen, Switzerland. (AP Photo/KEYSTONE, Regina Kuehne, file)
NEW YORK, N.Y. - There was a time when releasing three full-length albums in 14 months wouldn't have seemed so unusual. Today, it's practically unheard of.
Yet that's what Mark Oliver Everett, better known to his fans as "E," just accomplished. The discs are so different in theme and execution that it almost seems like the man singing on "Tomorrow Morning" isn't the same person as on "End Times."
The first disc, "Hombre Loco," typified by the feral stomper "Prizefighter," has songs about desire. The bleak "End Times," motivated by the 47-year-old Everett's own despair, is a piercing, quiet examination of how the end of a relationship feels different as a person ages. "Tomorrow Morning" sees the sun rise, as Everett finds love again and gives himself the challenge of writing "warm" songs while using what are considered cold-sounding electronic instruments exclusively.
The burst of activity came after four years without music from Everett, who records under the band name Eels. Everett worked on a PBS documentary about his father, quantum physicist Hugh Everett III, and wrote the well-regarded memoir, "Things the Grandchildren Should Know."
In the book, Everett writes about the tragedies in his life: finding the body of a father he barely knew after he died of a heart attack; his mother's death from cancer; and his only sibling's mental illness and suicide. It's poignant — and with some surprising humour.
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The Associated Press: Are things as good in your life now as they appear on "Tomorrow Morning"?
Eels: Oddly enough, they still are. And I don't think people should worry too much about that. It doesn't mean that I'm going to start writing John Denver songs.
AP: Did you expect this to be a trilogy of three albums in 14 months?
Eels: It wasn't until a certain point that I realized I wanted to make it a three-part story, and I also wanted to put them out fairly rapidly compared to the usual because of the four-year absence. I thought it would be a good time to make up for lost time.
AP: What did the experience of putting out so much music so quickly teach you?
Eels: Now that I'm on the other end of it, I'm quite amazed that I did it. I wouldn't mind keeping up that pace personally. I've always liked that '60s pace of putting out two albums a year, but they did have the benefit of speed and other drugs that kept you going back then, before you knew how bad they were for you. Now that we know you can't do that, you just have to drink a lot of coffee.
AP: In some respects it lends power to the concepts by having them pile up in that way.
Eels: That's what I was thinking. You really notice the individuality of each album in that way.
AP: With "End Times" and its discussion of mature heartbreak, did you think it was a good concept or were you just reacting to what was going on in your life?
Eels: It was what was happening in my life. For a long time, I never considered writing about what was going on with the tragedies in my family, and then I realized every time I sat down to write something else, I felt like I was an actor, like I was faking something.
AP: Did your memoir bring people in to hear your music who might not otherwise have heard it?
Eels: I think that has happened, and it also happened with the documentary that was made about my father. We have a whole new audience of physics geeks.
Online: http://www.eelstheband.com
Sunday, November 21, 2010
THE ALIENS-FOLLOW THAT GIRL 1980
Saturday, November 13, 2010
OOH AH GORILLA ... DAMON ALBARN RANTS LIKE CANTONA
DAMON ALBARN has laid into The X Factor with a rant right out of ERIC CANTONA's book of baffling quotes.
The BLUR frontman and GORILLAZ mastermind compared contestants on SIMON COWELL's reality show monster to cows being packed off to slaughter.
When asked about The X Factor, Damon said: "It's not good because, though from time to time they may stumble across a beautiful voice, they put them through a food processor and make them fast food.
"A cow is definitely a more beautiful thing before it hits the hamburger factory."
That's right up there with Manchester United legend Cantona and his classic: "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea."
And Damon's beef with the show didn't stop there.
He continued: "I think music would be totally fine and in a healthy state if people weren't so preoccupied with celebrity.
"There is potential for insane cross-fertilisation but there's this sort of malignant tumour that keeps growing, very much based on a few TV and record executives practising this dark art of the television show."
Damon, currently on tour in the US with Gorillaz, also questioned the treatment of The X Factor hopefuls.
He said: "They do things to these kids. They play with their bodies and their faces. They just bleach and sanitise everything about them and that's a very potent aspirational aspect of our society."
Damon's dig comes after JAY KAY from JAMIROQUAI slammed The X Factor last week - just days before performing on it.
His rant, in which he branded CHERYL COLE and DANNII MINOGUE "f****** useless", went down as well as a hug ban at a DERMOT O'LEARY house party.
Both judges gave Jay the silent treatment and refused to applaud his performance - even though he did say he'd happily sleep with them.
It's unlikely Damon would ever put himself in Jay's situation. Neither Blur nor Gorillaz need the publicity that comes with appearing in front of millions of viewers on The X Factor.
Gorillaz headlined Glastonbury in the summer and the previous year Blur played two sell-out nights at Hyde Park and were top billing at Glasto themselves.
Having spent all that time on Worthy Farm, it's easy to see why Damon knows a thing or two about cows.
No wonder he's devastated when they're turned into burgers.
DAMON: I RECORDED ALBUM ON MY iPAD
By TIM NIXON and CARL STROUD
GORILLAZ mastermind DAMON ALBARN has recorded the band's new album on an iPad.
The singer, 42, hopes the material will become the first collection to be entirely created on the Apple gadget.
The BLUR singer laid down tracks during breaks on the road with the chart-topping band.
He said: "I hope I'll be making the first record on an iPad. I fell in love with my iPad as soon as I got it so I've made a completely different kind of record."
Damon is the latest artist to use computer giant Apple's devices.
Last month New York band ATOMIC TOM shot to prominence after they were filmed performing their single Take Me Out on a Manhattan subway train using only their iPhones for instruments.
The iPad allows users to surf the web, watch high-definition movies and send emails.
Friday, November 12, 2010
RADIOHEAD’S THOM YORKE PREDICTS END OF MUSIC INDUSTRY
“It will be only a matter of time—months rather than years—before the music business establishment completely folds. [It will be] no great loss to the world.” So says Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke, a man who knows a thing or two about how the music industry works.
Yorke made the comments, bizarrely, in a new British textbook about citizenship. My civics textbooks had quotes from the likes of George Washington and Voltaire, so clearly the books in Britain are a little more current.
But is he right? I actually think the music industry has been doing pretty well for itself in recent months. Granted, it took the industry ten years to get its act together, but not everyone is perfect.
How much of the music on iTunes is now DRM-free? Don’t like iTunes? You have options, and options that work well: Amazon MP3, specialized digital music stores à la BeatPort, the Zune Marketplace, etc. Certain countries in Europe even have access to Spotify, which is about as perfect a music-delivery service as I can think of. Will Spotify ever be released in the U.S.? Hard to say, but let’s not pretend that there aren’t alternatives to buying whatever Wal-Mart wants to stock on its shelves.
You’ll also recall that Radiohead, a few years back, released an album online for a whatever-you-like price. (A physical album was eventually released as well.) It was very much a success, but not every band is Radiohead, a band with dedicated fans and who are, I would imagine, more technologically savvy. (I base that on the fact that everyone I ever knew who said Radiohead was their favorite band certainly knew their way around the Internet. Plus, I think I read something to that effect in the book Ripped.)
I do agree with his last bit, that the “loss” of the music industry will be of not great loss to the world. Pretty sure music existed before the RIAA showed up.